Undiplomatic Conduct

A former maid is accusing India’s New York consulate of using her as forced labor and making a sexual advance. Santosh Bhardwaj, 45, alleges in her lawsuit that she was made to work 105-hour a week for just $300 a month and had to sleep in a storage room.

July 5, 2011 at 9:00 AM

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A former maid is accusing India’s New York consulate of using her as forced labor and making a sexual advance.

Santosh Bhardwaj, 45, alleges in her lawsuit that she was made to work 105-hour a week for just $300 a month and had to sleep in a storage room. “The defendants confiscated Ms Bhardwaj’s passport and subjected her to approximately a year of forced labor and psychological coercion in their household, culminating in an incident of sexual harassment,” the lawsuit alleges.

Dayal has denounced the allegations as “complete nonsense” and his lawyer Ravi Batra told the media, “This fraudster of a woman, seeing dollar signs, has hit on a ‘get rich quick’ scheme.”